So here is how this happened:
I wanted to play games on my DS.  My daughter magically lost my Super Mario Bros DS cart at my Dad's house (or more specifically: Somewhere in this plane of existence). I didn't really want to play Scribblenauts, because it's kind of fucking shitty to control.  So I heard that Super ScribbleNauts fixed this, and I heard the Layton games are also pretty good.  So I ordered Layton and the Unwound Future (or whatever the hell it's called) and Super Scribblenauts.  Put in Layton, was amazing.  Showed my Wife, she said "Oh I can play this too."  About 6 hours of the wife playing my DS later, I said "You know what, I'll just roll over to Walmart and buy you a DS, they're like $100 there."  DS bought, the first thing wife wants to play is Layton.  I pop in Super ScribbleNauts.  Sure it controls better, but still, Layton is so much better.  My inner racist takes over and I decide its that Layton is made by a bunch of Japanese dudes that make it so much better.  I walk into hell (gamestop) and buy a game called "Dragon Quest VI."  It looks interesting to say the least.  Also at the same time I order Curious Village and Diabolical Box off Amazon so my wife (and later I, after she's 100%'ed the puzzles in EACH game) can play them.  
Finally, all is well and I pop in this ancient JRPG, expecting the worse (I think JRPG's and turn-based RPG combat are so stupid).  I start playing the game, and after I get pretty tough and crazy shit starts happening (you time travel in a dream, you're in a dream of a dream of the real world, that's also really a dream, what?) I'M FUCKING SUCKED IN. 
 
Are all JRPG's made equal?  Seriously guys, where do I go next?  I kinda thought these games were shite, but I am totally loving this game, loving the difficulty of combat, loving the ramdom encounters, and loving the totally off the rails story.  It's not the greatest story, but it's off the rails crazy.  I mean, in the real world my character is a manifestation of the dream of a real world character, who looks like but not exactly like, me.  And my job is to find the real me and conjoin the real and the dream me.  That's Insane.